Michael Douglas: Jail will make my son reform

MICHAEL Douglas claims prison is the best place for his son Cameron who is behind bars for drug dealing. The Hollywood veteran, who saw Cameron, 31, sent down for five years, believes his eldest offspring has to accept his punishment and use the experience to rebuild his life.

PUBLISHED: PUBLISHED: 00:00, Mon, Jul 26, 2010

Michael Douglas says that jail will help his son Cameron reform/Wenn.com []

Douglas, 65, who is married to Welsh beauty Catherine Zeta-Jones, 40, says: “Cameron is in prison and he makes no bones about the fact that he knows what he’s done.

He takes full responsibility for his actions. And you know, it might be that prison is the best place for him right now, to get his head together and sort out the next chapter in his life.

He’s a great young man and I hope he does get it together. I’ll certainly support him all the way.”

Michael says he has sympathy for Cameron’s mother, first wife Diandra, who divorced him after 23 years in 2000. “The whole family has had a very public crisis and of course I have to take some responsibility for it,” he adds. “I wasn’t around as much for Cameron.

“As I’ve said I was very much immersed in my career and in making a living. It was very hard for me and it was difficult for my wife too because she was very young at the time and did the best she could with her inexperience. But these things happen and I don’t beat myself up about it.”

He has had the chance to be a better father to his two children with Catherine, nine-year-old Dylan and Carys, seven. Douglas ensures they are in touch with their mother’s Welsh origins. “We get back to Wales as often as we can,” he says.

“A minimum of two weeks in the summer and a combination of a family holiday and Catherine’s mum and dad taking the kids on their own for a couple of weeks – keeping them aware of their Welsh roots and spoiling them rotten while they’re about it.”